Upon power-up or reset, a typical computing device executes initial platform firmware, such as basic input/output system (BIOS) firmware or extensible firmware interface (EFI), to initialize the various components and interconnects of the computing device. A portion of the initial platform firmware (e.g., memory reference code (MRC)) is configured to initialize the memory, such as the memory controller, and/or processor of the computing device.
Typically, the memory initialization firmware portion of the BIOS/EFI is provided by the manufacturer of the memory controller and/or processor incorporated in the computing device. However, because the memory initialization firmware is dependent upon particular parameters of the computing platform, which may be unknown to the manufacturer of the memory controller, the memory initialization firmware is provided in source code or non-executable form to the platform manufacturer. The platform manufacturer may subsequently modify the memory initialization firmware based on the platform-specific parameters of the computing device. However, the memory initialization firmware may become unstable or otherwise result in unknown or inadvertent performance should any unforeseen errors occur during the modification procedure.